Tuesday, 24 December 2013

'Let's go in and see if we can buy it.'Candy has sixpence to buy sweets with.'I'm afraid you'd have to save up a lot of thosebefore you could buy it,'says the owner of the shop.Candy saves all her money.She never goes to the sweet shop.But oh dear, one day the extra special rocking horse was gone.She is very sad.

She writes to Santa Claus.

She spends all her saved up pennies and sixpenceson presents for her father,(three handkerchiefs)her mother,(a pot of daffodils)and Peppermint the dog(a piece of ribbon to tie on his collar).

On Christmas Eve, Candy wrapped up her presentsand put them under the Christmas tree.

What a wonderful Christmas everyone had!

This year's rather wonky Advent windowbased on a children's book published in 1965and the songRockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

tearing past and jostling all the other traffic out of the way as I debated the merits of a Norway Spruce over a Nordman Fir.

The spiky Spruce won, because it smells better

and reminds me of my childhood. The needles will shower

over the tiled floor and stick in my jumper but I can live with that.

I wrestled the 7 foot netted tree in through the boot and across

the flattened back seats so that it could nestle

on my left shoulder for the journey home,

thankful that all available police were occupied in the

opposite direction. Once home I had slightly more difficulty pulling

it out of the boot and then had to saw off the bottom two inches with a rusty saw and find a bucket of water to stand it in. It is leaning drunkenly in the garage,but smells gorgeous. Whilst in there, I inspected my forced hyacinth

bulbs.They are sulking.A few noodly roots have grown but nothingis coming